Cloudbusting
by SeasonVelvet
Summary: Duncan Idaho and a fugitive traverse Gammu in hopes of evading the Honored Matre long enough to board a no ship.


This little ditty blossomed out of a crack pot fantasy I had about being a character in the Dune universe. Rest assured, however, that the female protagonist is not "me". Although as the reader you know nothing about this character, the entire fiction is written in her perspective. I thought it might be interesting to see the enormity of the events that transpire in the last three installments of the original Dune series as a "lay person", so to speak.

It might be a bit vague, my apologies. All should be revealed in time. The most interesting part about this is Duncan's POV, in my opinion, which is completely removed from the interaction. So, while the protagonist doesn't understand him, we (that's dramatic irony!) have a background to fall back on to understand his behavior. I don't want to explain too much, but at the moment, he's in a bad way. Remember that he is being held captive, spied on at all times, is held in even tighter bondage by his addiction to Murbella, and that these are only the latest sacrifices in his service to the Atreides during his many reincarnations. He is particularly bitter towards the Bene Gesserit, always has been, and he's also always had a *bit* of an issue with women in the series. Herbert makes mention of this in God Emperor (also, really, it was a flaw illustrated in his first real scene, caught by Jessica drunk on spice beer). I recalled, also, his interactions with any of the female characters in the series. He is a powerfully sexual character, and especially during his verbal judo with Alia in the second book, we can see what his *inherent* nature tends towards (as he is a ghola at the time). That roughly includes 1) sexual motivation/aggression 2) analytical detachment 3) militaristic/power seeking 4) inner sense of morality that revolves highly around loyalty 5) resentment/revenge.

So the two characters meet when all of these factors are colliding. With that bit of clarification, hope you enjoy!

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><p>The morbid music gave the scene an eerie edge to it. She felt all her nerves stand to attention and knew that this moment would remain in memory for a long time. There was incongruence between the sophistication of the technologies apparent in this settlement on Gammu and the musical instruments being played by a group of musicians outside on the street. She could not discern the meaning of the song they played, with it's Greek sounding flutes and the sombre peals of a female soprano in some foreign language of this planet.<p>

She waited alone in a modest room of a so-called boarding house, which she was left to guess was probably a convenient front for Bene Gesserit contacts, or Missionaria Protectiva, or independent merchants, she did not know. She knew that compared to other planets of the Bene Gesserit this place was a slum, but there was more than enough here to captivate her just by looking out of the window.

Perversely, they had sought to hide themselves by becoming blatantly visible. They could not possibly be missed in the get up that had been contrived for their party. They were to travel the streets of Fijn Kissòs (a name little changed from the Harkonnen times!) as a wedding assembly, with her as the newly crowned bride. That explained the pristine aesthetic she currently sported. Her hair was elaborately styled with small twirls, romantic wisps, and braids, and an assortment tiny, fragrant white blossoms that covered her brown head like so many stars. Jewels clung to her dewy skin. As intriguing as the wings of an exotic butterfly, unnamed stones had been placed on her skin in a subtle pattern over her collar bones and shoulders and held with some strange and invisible adhesive. Her dress was of moderate design, a flattering drape of pale green material paired with silver sandals. A rather demure look over all as the fashion of the time dictated but impressive under the time constraints and lack of resources that had compelled it.

Or so she had been informed by one of their allies as she was dressed and instructed on the proper demeanor she was to opine, what to say in response to certain questions if she should be asked, her place in the Gammu equivalent of a caste system, etc.

They wanted her alive, she could count on that much. After Teg's performance on Rakis, all those of his descent came under attack by the vengeful Honored Matres. Yet it was not only the Honored Matres who were disturbed by the rumours of Rakis, or who feared the coming of another Kwisatz Haderach. In order to study her, or preserve the line, the Bene Gesserit had inspected reports of Teg's history with them and eventually followed the trail to past liaisons and the children born of them. Those that were unknown were left unknown, but according to Bene Gesserit intel or mentat summation or prescience, she did not know, her location had been discovered by Honored Matres. Thus was she here now, waiting to depart for a hidden no ship somewhere in the heart of Gammu.

Why they had even come to Gammu in the first was unclear to her. Her native planet was Magnild-Gidour, and was what one might call a "wet planet", meaning it was largely rich, peaceful, and prosperous, but also not a major power and it was a common jibe to remark on the softness of those spoiled by the serenity of Dour and blinded by it's eternal mists. There was a bawdy street saying about girls from Gidour, that they came wet and left wetter. Another is a story of a man so besotted with the bloom of a Gidour water flower that he becomes entangled in the underwater arms of the plant in attempt to reach it and drowns.

Her Mother had been relocated to the similar planet Caladan while she had been escorted away to Gammu by the current Bashar and other Bene Gesserit. She supposed the Bene Gesserit were counting on the Honored Matres not daring to destroy their merchant planet that must surely be a considerable source of wealth for them.

The door on her right opened. "Young bride," the aide who had dressed her spoke in the universal tongue Galach. The Bene Gesserit Bazzar Burzmali stood beside her.

"We leave now for Yheides."

She walked forward briskly and followed them as they moved at a fast pace down the hallway. The bashar turned to her. "This is shere. Take it if you are captured. It will prevent your mind from being read."

_I know what shere is_, she thought, as she concealed the shere.

"Your husband awaits in the carriage. You married here in the city and are returning to his home in Yheides."

She said nothing and he took this as acknowledgement.

"You know of the Duncan Idaho gholas?"

She just had time to speak a hesitant yes before the Bashar turned and ran back into the house.

A few steps later and she found herself in front of the - the hangings of the floating houvanube opened.

Houvanubes were a familiar sight to locals of this region, as some of the wealthier families from Yheides married in the city and a number inevitably chose to explore Fijn Kissòs and visit the, lets say, less reputable establishments of Gammu. Some chose a rentable houvanube, which was a floating device stalked with pillows and other such luxuries appropriate for a wealthy canoodling couple.

Her startled pair of eyes immediately locked with the ghola - not enough time to do or say anything but climb into the -

"Wolkes!"

The gholas eyes were directed left and seemed to have found the source of the sound before she even heard it. Wolke was the rather less friendly term for a houvanube and it's inhabitants. In the local tounge, 'wolke' translated literally to mean "cloud", but the various connotations of the term on Gammu and it's history made it either a derogatory designation or a good humored joke, depending on the teller. There was something to be said of trickle down economics on Gammu and this was reflected in the language.

The little man who had shouted moved more quickly than his little feet would have suggested. He inclined his head towards the ghola, but peered in through the hangings to size her up as well, smiling his merchants' smile all the while. She wondered why the ghola was so silent. Was something awry?

"I see that you two are newly weds! Congratulations!" His greedy eyes latched on to her and there was a twinkle in them that had her offended for no reason she could articulate. Her face must have shown it though, because he turned to the ghola.

"I can see in you both a yearning, your eyes are like hollows and your hearts are cavernous. They sing to me." Now he was playing the kind old man on a tiny violin.

"For 20 l lárias I can put a drop of ambrosia on that tongue that will show you just what you are missing."

She felt the ghola was going to close the curtains. She was emboldened by curiosity. "And just what will you show us?"

She thought her sarcastic tone made her seem world-wise, but as she stared back at the merchant she realized it was quite the opposite, and resolved not to speak unless spoken to. She worried she had inadvertently given something away. Her constant looks to the ghola revealed even more, although of course no merchant could or would bother to guess at the secrets of a potential buyer. Later she would realize that a merchant may sell many things, including secrets.

The merchant grinned. "For you two? Freedom from the flesh."

The gholas mouth twisted down. "He means to sell us D." She was surprised that the ghola did not immediately turn the merchant away. Why did he allow this interaction? Would it be suspicious to turn him away now? Was the ghola defective?

She feigned understanding. The ghola glanced at her and elaborated, "Dream Seeker."

The merchant grew sour under the ghola's eyes. He knew there would be no sale here. He looked to her as a last resort.

"Would nothing temp you, young miss? No n'krata, shekobsi, or perhaps . . ." His gaze intense and compelling, "semuta?"

_Semuta_. Her mind spoke the name as soft as a lovers whisper in the night.

The merchant grinned, truly grinned. It was hideous! The drapes shut on the sight.

The ghola activated the nube and she felt the tremors of movement in the bedding. She watched as they rose and moved down the road. The material of the houvanube was such that the inside was transparent and the outside opaque, and the mechanics of the nube were fairly simple and mostly automated. They did indeed travel as though in a cloud.

She looked at the ghola. His back was to her. He turned his head to the side and then leaned against the wall of the nube, looked down at her.

"So you're one of Teg's daughters, huh?"

She did not expect this directness. She recalled all she knew of the Idaho gholas. _Spawn thousands of years_. May have influenced her own genetic line, she did not know; yet his lines were ever notorious, along with the Atreides. She did not see any of his likeness in her, so she guessed not. _Would I be a lowly maid's daughter elsewise?_

"Well, my Mother directly. Miles Teg is . . was . . apparently my maternal grandfather."

The ghola seemed to sneer. "And _you're_ of breeding age." He shook his head and laughed harshly to himself.

She watched this with increasing anxiety. "Are we not here to seek safe passage to Chapter House?"

He laughed harder for a moment and then subsided entirely. He looked at her, his face a stone.

"We may be stopped. If we are stopped and inspected, they will wonder why the sheets are not rumpled."

A part of her recoiled.

"All of this with the express permission of your new Bene Gesserit proctors. Bonsoir."

He moved in like a dark shadow and she felt his lips against hers. So that was what dead flesh felt like, she ruminated.

The plan for her expulsion to Chapter House had been outlined and explained to her. This was merely a precaution in the event that they are inspected. Yet she did not possess Bene Gesserit poise and the execution galled her. She was not removed. A kiss held a moral price.

She had been told that this was the safest way of traveling Gammu and she trusted the judgement of the Bene Gesserit, not that she had been swimming in choice.

Her lips were reddened when they stopped. Finger prints were revealed on her dress as it moved in the moonlight. The fabric had not been a choice of necessity after all. The ghola -

He glanced at her. "My name is Duncan Idaho, girl. Not ghola. If you said anything, I'd rather it be my name." The feral grin he flashed her was hard to look upon it was so humorless. It was as though he were a mad artist, flinging paint about with his brushes, no care for the material that would merely be used to make the masterpiece. She felt like an erratic splatter upon the wall.

She scowled inside. The arrogance of this ghola. He knew not a thing of her! Although, she thought measuredly, she knew nothing of him either. Nothing except his taste and his smell. To her shame she felt a flaring of arousal at this thought. He had some spell about him!

She dared a glance at him and his eyes told her he knew all.

To escape him, she looked down through the nube to the street below. They were traveling quickly but not so quickly as to draw undue attention. She watched in rapture. The soft blue of the night called a reflective mood on her. She was predisposed to solitude and brooding and willingly succumbed to it in the comfort of the houvanube. Some time passed. She watched the people of Kissòs below . . . as did Duncan. She looked at him once again, suddenly remembering the gravity of the situation. He was watching fixedly. He glanced at her.

"It is unlikely we will be stopped."

She absorbed this silently and went back to sight seeing.

He kept looking at her. Tension seemed to build in the space. He was going to be deliberately perverse, she could tell. There was anger in this one. It was best not to think of his abilities. She stared stubbornly down at the street, avoiding his eyes.

"Was that your first bit of fumbling?"

She controlled the mouth that wanted to be agape in shocked outrage. She floundered for a moment. Much offense about nerve and daring passed through her mind, indistinct.

She aimed a stare at him, unchanged. "Are you flattered?"

He laughed. "Great. They've sent me a virgin."

Her lip curled. "I am not yours."

He seemed to sober. "No." He turned away and looked out over the city. "Now you are Bene Gesserit."

She sat in the silence for a few moments before venturing, "When will we arrive at . . . the no ship?"

"Once we are out of Kissòs we will stop at a house to depart the nube. We will stock up on food and other necessities there. Our cover will be that we travel north to visit family."

There was a pause. He supplied, "20 hours."

The hum of the houvanube became poignant in the silence that proceeded his words.

"I suggest sleep."

She reclined back on the bedding and seemed to agree. Then, finding her eyes drift to the ghola commander, she slowly decided the best way to pass the time would be to -

"No questions."

"Not even concerning mission parameters?" Ever innocent.

Piercing glance. "Is there a point you failed to comprehend when you were briefed"

"No."

They were silent.

She looked back down through the centre viewing window. Idly following the remote people with her eyes, watching their movement without conscious direction, her mind receded to the familiar inner world. It was like a cove in Tṙeshdei river, she was afloat in the dark waters of her mind. Her immediate feelings revolved around the Duncan Idaho ghola. His male presence so near. She was a maid in more ways than one, even at the age of 20. Her vulnerability and want embarrassed her. She could not control her reactions and it would be the same if it were Bashar Burzmali in his place or any other reasonably attractive male near her age. A resigned sigh escaped her.

Perhaps she had not fully considered what accepting the outstretched wing of the Bene Gesserit would entail. Yet she had felt she was drowning. Drowning in the past, unable to visualize a future. She oft thought about what her life was worth, a pain she brought on herself again and again, both as a hurt and as a solace for other hurts - that she was nothing but a grain of sand on a beach. That death could find her at any moment on any day.  
>Cooped in the comfortable quarters of a servants wing, no physical need went unsatiated, but those ephemeral desires of the mind and heart that could seldom be brought to words clung about her like ghosts, draining her life force.<p>

She had been a bright and lively girl who grew into a somber and slightly deranged adult. Bene Gesserit teachers would have their hands full molding her into something useable. She welcomed their best efforts and hoped they would succeed. She knew she was, in a way, posturing herself as a child to the Bene Gesserit as parent. Do this, do that. Already such was their relationship. However, she was faithless, and the faithless will follow anyone. She smiled a little as she mused that she must be like an ancient Fremen, her wordless pain like the repression of the people by the dry desert, a blind trust in someone or something to bring rain and green to her arid landscape. A wild dogmatism that spurred her to some frenetic end.

"What have the Bene Gesserit promised you?"

She looked up at him.

"Or do you expect to resume your former occupation in a new setting?"

His voice, twisty and gnarly like an inkvine. It sought to scar, but she did not flatter herself that she was the target.

"Aside from my safety, after I am assessed the Bene Gesserit will find a post worthy of me."

"Worthy of you."

She cringed. "Worthy of them. I mean, suitable to my particular skills while beneficial to their overall organism."

His face remained impassive. "Interesting choice of words. You believe the Bene Gesserit are one being with a single consciousness?" His voice with the same conflicting tonality of complete seriousness and complete mocking.

"I think all things that have a purpose can be said to be alive, and that most human structures and societies echo our own composition of specialized microsystems within larger frameworks. So, organism."

She read surprise into his face and inwardly smirked. "I was privileged enough to attend school and had access to the Great House facilities."

"Are people no more than cells?"

She looked down and turned inward to reflect. She considered the constitution of a cell, all of it's complex mechanisms.

"What does a cell think of itself?" Her voice rose of itself at the end to make it an honest question. She referred to his implication that it degraded a person to be compared to a cell, yet she imagined that a cell amongst cells would have little to say of it's status in a Whole of which it knows all that it needs to in order to fully function as was intended by nature, if it could be said to Know at all.

"Failure of analogy."

She pressed on. "It is no secret the Bene Gesserit are loyal to their own. Is that not evidence of a shared mentality, if not consciousness?"

He shrugged.

Again she looked away from his unrelenting gaze, so oppressive. She realized he was far above this conversation, looking down, fitting pieces and tying strings together. His words had double edges on their double edges. She could not know his thoughts. She would scowl but this would only reveal more of her ego. She affected to ignore him again.

"You don't strike me as Reverend Mother material."

She glared at the implications.

"You are a child."

She remained mute. She resented his tone, it was as though he really spoke to himself. What did he expect from this?

He gaze was intense, his demeanor likewise. The power and poise in his deportment coupled with the vitality of youth made his presence impossible to ignore. She noted his wiry shoulders, the black hair slicked back, the severity of his eyes. But what made him irresistible was the sense that he saw. It was a special thing to be truly seen, to be in understanding with another. It would not be denied.

"How present was this Honored Matre threat?" Clearly dubious.

This gave her pause, but she was too distracted to think deeply on it. She rallied at a question she could answer. "_You **know**_ of the murder of Teg's daughter!" Accusatory.

"Which one?"

He had a queer look when he said that. She turned her face away. There was no point in discussion if he was going to merely play with her as a cat with a mouse. Thankfully he spoke no more but the implications of his words lingered. Perhaps it would be wise to be afraid.

She came to be aware of his looking at her again. _Damn this creature that acts like a man!_

"I suspect they will eventually teach you how to be a good whore."

Her eye on him now was like that of a hawk's claw. Could she scratch that surface at all? Her senses spoke to her: danger.

"If you like, I can advance you a lesson or two, free of charge." He inclined his hips in unmistakable suggestion, a hateful parody of sensuality. She was not a hawk but a moth suddenly, a moth desperate against a window pane. "One whore to another."

She spoke stiffly and pointedly. "I don't think so." She despised being a captive audience for this twisted sermon.

He laughed. "You are so careful of a prize no one has cared to take."

Nothing from her.

"Do you think you will have your choice of suitor with the Bene Gesserit? That you will recline like a queen on gold-rimmed satin pillows, surrounded by jewels as you are now, eating choice grapes? You are a chicken being primed for slaughter."

"So are you here to pick off all my feathers?"

"A chicken may well be hairless for all the flying it does. But you misunderstand me. I am here to help you lay the golden egg."

He did not seem enthusiastic about this. By some feeling she ventured, "Have you no choices of your own?"

_He would criticize her but then admit to participation in Bene Gesserit plans! Was this in fact their plan, or a potential in the plan that was left to itself to develop?_

"As a maid's daughter you have to ask about choice?"

She was angry now and demanded, "What is your point?"

He shrugged again.

She remembered suddenly that this was not a creature, but a person who had lived countless lifetimes. He had been the husband of Alia of the Knife. Consort to the Tyrant Leto. Her knowledge of these things was inadequate in the face of the reality, but all that she had refused to consider she considered now. A sadness settled over her as she thought of trading one bondage for another, maid for acolyte. She reminded herself that she had no choice. And this one day was more eventful than a full year in Tṙeshdei.

"Do you think the Bene Gesserit will allow you to even touch the likes of semuta?"

Stillness filled her. So he noted her reaction to semuta. _Damn him, damn him, damn him!_

If only she knew where he stood, she might find her own footing. She sought more information concerning the Bene Gesserit and so baited him with, "I think they are more accommodating than you credit them." She watched for how he received this.

"They will give you a pretty cage fit for a pretty bird."

She might have frowned for how little he managed to reveal, although he still saw the momentary contraction of her eye brows. A facade of boredom. "More animal metaphors?"

"So you are not an animal, but the Bene Gesserit is an organism."

Unamused. "There are types."

"Yes." Spoken as though she were a toddler pointing out that the sky was purple.

"I am what I am! You interject yourself into my business, with your . . . _opinions_, as though I gave a damn!" She stopped, out of steam, unsure how to continue. Words came from somewhere, "Stop looking to me. You know not what you seek and I . . . care not to find it for you."

He might have spoken, but she avoided his gaze. She resolved to be stronger and looked over at him, but by then the moment had passed and he was involved with the controls of the nube.

Surrounded by the dark of the night, his back to her, she suddenly felt alone. The lights from the city below cast the houvanube in intermittent streaks of reds and oranges, creating angles and shadows in the small space like the inside of a revolving kaleidoscope.

It came to her that she was leaving all that she knew and all who knew her. A part of her welcomed the separation and another mourned the severance.

"We will reach the rendezvous point in 2 hours."

She had no particular feeling in response to this announcement. Despite lingering anxiety over the risk of being "out in the open", and the prospect of being out of this ghola-man's presence, there was something to be said for the peacefulness of being in a traveling apparatus. Except for the danger of the Duncan Idaho, nothing was taxing or demanding her attention, there was no past or future, they merely existed in a transient present. Wolke really was a keen insight.

She turned to inspect the cooling container. There were drinks and prepared dishes on display. She rose and crossed to it, took out a wrapped marapulcra and a few alfajores, sprinkled with a sweet white substance in the traditional manner. She settled back in to the pillows like one of the fabled Tsagaan Buree shell players, legs crossed, holding the wrap up to her mouth. The Idaho ghola came back from wherever his mind had been and soon did the same. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that he ate rather mechanically, as though the number of chews per mouthful were calculated based on his digestive system, rather than out of a desire to taste and have eaten, that he did not savour the food. She found this interesting, because she had never been one of those who merely ate to live. Life, for her, was not primarily an intellectual experience, but a very hedonistic one. It was sensation she sought.

She would only ever find contentment in these non-times, when there was nothing but the freedom of the mind to dream, when there was nothing but consciousness that signaled life was what this was and not death, because to be dead as well as alive is the ultimate experience.

In a very literal way, everything is dead as well as alive, because everything is in transition, connected as a cycle. There were dead cells as well as live cells that composed her flesh. One day all of those cells may be lifeless and there would be no mind to remark upon the occurrence. She did not, like a Reverend Mother or a ghola, have the expectation of eternal life or it's paltry imitations. No. That was a false dream. And should she have the chance to be reborn? She doubted that she would find whatever it was which alluded her in this life in the next. Those existential questions would remain; as a human, she doubted that it was even possible to achieve any kind of total contentment. Even if she managed to find love and happiness, if she were to come by power or influence, if she were worshiped far and wide as the greatest person to have ever lived, what would this mean? By what could she compare herself to but the memories of all those before who lived in greatness and perished to fertilize the dirt all the same? Where there should have been a motivation to strike a mark upon the world, there was nothing in her.

It may be reductive, but she had heard that how one approaches one thing is likely how one approaches everything. It seemed there was a great difference between her perspective and that of the man-ghola's. Of course, she did not need to have seen him eat to hazard that guess.

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><p>To be continued . . .<p>

PS: The protagonist's name is Perlline Hwenconch. Sort of a french pronunciation, like Pehr-leen Hwhen-conjuh).


End file.
